Five for Friday, June 17: Father’s Day Edition

This July will mark five years since my dad passed away. It took me a long time to get to the point where I could feel okay in the world without him–my dad was a fixer, and even though he’d been in failing health for years before his death, there was always a part of my brain that felt more safe and protected with him around.

Now, though, I’ve arrived a point where I feel okay taking on the world without him. This is, at least in part, due to the fact that my dad taught me how to deal with a difficult world. Today’s Five for Friday is dedicated to five things he taught me about being a capable person.

You’ll get over it. Or you’ll be mad for a long, long time. My dad didn’t put much stock in hurt feelings–his or anyone else’s. They way he saw it, feelings pass. If someone was mad at you–or if you were mad at them–chances are, that anger would fade. Holding on to anger requires a lot of energy. Most of us aren’t that devoted to our feelings. There’s time enough for dealing with the problem later, when cooler heads prevail.

You have to catch your own fish. I was maybe nine or ten years old when, fishing one of Idaho’s many lakes, I started to reel in an eight-pound catfish. Eight pounds might not sound all that big, but trust me–fighting eight pounds of muscle with a will to live would change your mind. I kept begging for help. My dad kept saying “It’s your fish. You have to catch it.” I came perilously close to just letting my pole slip into the lake. But I didn’t. I caught that fish. And I learned that doing hard things on my own is both possible and more satisfying than giving in.

It doesn’t cost anything to be nice. In spite of the fact that he was a pretty hard-nosed guy–an artifact of his career in the military–my dad had a very generous spirit. He kept a huge garden and gave away half of what he grew. He served as an usher at our church for years, filling in for anyone who went on vacation or just didn’t show up on schedule. But anytime someone would comment on something kind he’d done, he’d just shrug and say “It doesn’t cost anything to be nice.”

Kick ’em in the nuts. Though my father called me “Princess” throughout my life, he taught me that I couldn’t always expect protection–sometimes, I’d have to take care of the situation. When I complained about a group of boys that had been harassing me in elementary school, his advice was straightforward.

“Don’t tell her that!” my mom said. “What if she actually goes to school and does it?”

My dad shrugged. “I bet they’ll leave her alone,” he said.

(Note: I did not kick anyone in the nuts, but threatening to do so proved to be just as effective.)

It takes all kinds of people to make a world. My dad was not a perfect person. He was the product of a very specific generation. He believed that men should be men and women should be women. He believed children should obey their parents, period. But he also believed in letting people live their lives in peace. Whatever his opinion on a particular matter, he knew it didn’t entitle him to make choices for anyone else. Anytime he found someone’s choices perplexing, he’d shrug and say “It takes all kinds of people to make a world.”

He never embraced the diversity of the world we live in, but even so, he taught me that it was nothing to be afraid of.